How can I grant a user access to someone else's mailbox in Microsoft Outlook?

A. You can grant a user access to another user's mailbox by performing the following steps:

Log on to Outlook as the user who owns the mailbox and select Options from the Tools menu.

Select the Delegates tab.

Click Add.

You'll see a list of users who can be given access to the mailbox. Select the user or users to whom you want to delegate access and click Add, as the figure shows. Click OK.

Now select the rights that this delegated user has. By default, users are given only Calendar and Tasks access, but you can give access to other areas (e.g, Inbox, Contacts) at different levels (e.g., Reviewer, Author, Editor) as the figure shows. Notice you can also select the option to send the delegate an email message confirming the access level and the option that sets whether the delegate can see items marked private. Click OK.

Discuss this Article 7

Darren (not verified)

on Nov 7, 2005

This tip is wrong - it is describing how to give delegate access to your mailbox. Delegate access is *not* about granting access to your mailbox; it's about allowing someone to send email on your behalf. Often, that requires that you give rights to folders as well, but you can make someone a delegate without giving them the ability to send mail on your behalf.
If you're just looking to give someone access to your inbox, right click on the Inbox folder and set the permissions. This gives the person or group the appropriate permissions without also granting "send on behalf".
An administrator can also give the appropriate permissions by granting the "Receive As" right through the user's AD object via the security tab. An administrator could also grant Full Mailbox Access through the AD as well, via the user's mailbox rights.

Correction to my previous comment, the last sentence of the first paragraph: you can make someone a delegate without givng them the ability to access your mailbox. And you can grant access to your mailbox without giving them them the ability to send on your behalf. What you can't do is: make someone a delegate without giving them the ability to send on your behalf.